Childrens books for future designers and planners

I have two kids, ages almost 6 and 3, and while they love reading books, I enjoy reading their books as much if not more than they do.  I love the nostalgia and silliness of Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl and the clever stories and terms that Mo Willems churns. The way my kids respond to books has shown me the power within their pages. One book can spark a new interest that lasts days, months – even years. One book can lead to the insistence that we read tens more on the same topic.

So naturally, I try to select books on topics that are also interesting to me (after all, I’m equally invested in reading these). This prompted an unofficial research project on children’s books about the built environment. With the exception of the immense stock of books about construction, trucks, trains and planes, there are relatively few stories about the professions and interests of the designers and planners or about the shape and functions of cities, buildings, communities, neighborhoods and parks themselves.

However disappointed I was by the brevity of my list, books like Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty and The Little House by Virginia Burton have been inducted into our nightly favorites. (You can find my assuredly incomplete list of children’s books on landscape, architecture, planning and otherwise urban-related topics at the end of this post.)

What is curious about this short list is that designers and planners love to publish books – but often these books are more effective as marketing tools for their services than as revenue generators from their royalties. Michael Crosbie, FAIA, who is currently the associate dean, architecture department chair, and associate professor at the University of Hartford and also edits Faith & Form magazine, has written more than 20 books on architecture. Five of these are specifically for children. Michael wrote a series of children’s book published by Wiley in 1993: Architecture Counts, Architecture Colors, Architecture Shapes, and Architecture Animals; in 2000 he wrote Arches to Zigzags which was published by Abrams. “The Wiley books have sold more than 120,000 copies, and continue to sell well nearly 20 years after publication, so they have by far been the most popular books I've ever written,” Michael says.

Watching my kids get excited by their books reminds me that I “discovered” the design and planning professions well after I established my career. Perhaps if I had read The Curious Garden by Peter Brown when I was five years old, I may have studied landscape architecture instead. From loosely polling my landscape, architecture, planner, urban designer friends, I’ve noticed that most of them chose their profession because they had a parent, uncle, aunt or family friend that was in a related profession. If this is how young people are still being recruited into studying design and planning, it’s no wonder why these fields suffer from a lack of diversity.

This is a missed opportunity! A children’s book that can be found in a public library can transcend races, genders, economic classes and cultures. What’s the literary legacy you’d prefer, a silly picture book about a personal learning experience that inspired a little girl to pursue your vocation or the coffee table monograph that you’ll give to your clients?

Children’s Books Relating to Design or Planning of the Built Environment

(Did I leave one of your favorites off? Please comment with title and author and I’ll add it.)

Make Your Vote Count: Be2Awards

I first learned about the Be2Awards awards last year while researching our book, so of course we are really excited to have “Social Media in Action” shortlisted for the 2012 Be2 Media Award. I’ll say it up front … the awards are crowdsourced, so please vote for our book! Plus, if you journey to their website and start clicking you’ll discover some fantastic examples of built environment (that’s the B.e.) professionals, companies and organizations who are using new media in innovative ways.

The quality of competition here is no joke.  Mark Johnson’s social media PR campaign (which we recognized as one of our blog post favorites) and his competitor, #droptheban, make for a tough choice in the Best PR/Social Media Campaign category, as does ArchitectMap and Green Vision in the Best Community Category. The categories for the best social media and sustainability blog are ripe with great examples – and blogs to start reading religiously. I was thrilled to see Cesar Abeid’s Construction Industry Podcast, a series that I recently discovered and really enjoy.  The list gets me thinking of other sites, campaigns and communities to nominate next year.

“Social Media in Action” is in the Best Old Media/New Media category and I am honored to be among these prestigious candidates which include the UK’s construction search engine, a UK construction publication that makes all its content free online, the UK’s construction trade association live database of contract awards and The Guardian’s own built environment “hub” for sustainable development.

The Be2Awards are in their third year and aligned with the London strand of the global Social Media Week event series that takes place in a handful of cities worldwide. Be2 is also hosting Be2Talk, a speaker series on the built environment and social media as a part of the London Social Media Week. I sincerely hope these talks will be posted after the event. I’m interested to see Carlton Reid’s ''Cycling, the built environment and social media'' presentation. This is hardly their first event – Be2 has hosted a slew of conferences, Twitter chats and more since the organization was established in 2008 by built-environment professionals Martin Brown  and Paul Wilkinson, Jodie Miners  and Pam Broviak.   I just joined the Be2Camp community to stay better connected to all their happenings and hope you will consider joining too.

Success by Design Shares Compelling Stories of California Architects

Success by Design: Revealing Profiles of California Architects, written and photographed by Jenn Kennedy, provides a detailed overview of the careers of 25 successful architects in California. Kennedy profiles a diverse group of architects from variety of firms based throughout California who have worked on projects ranging from residential, commercial buildings, educational institutions and public arenas. She does a compelling job of telling the stories of architects through interviews, portraits and photographs and includes renderings from each firm, discussing their beginning work until current work.

The book is accessible and illuminating. Kennedy has a unique approach in telling each innovator’s story in an authentic and sincere manner. Each innovator shares their personal history, how they got started, their challenges, lessons learned and other aspects of their journey that make this book a must-read for anyone who aspires to pursue this profession.

Success by Design is a helpful resource for architects and designers new to the industry or for anyone looking to work for or with these firms, but it would also be useful for architects who are seeking to start their own firm and need perspective on how to build a practice.

Notable architects profiled include Steven Ehrlich, principal and founder of Ehrlich Architecture, Art Gensler, cofounder of Gensler, Ray Kappe, educator and founder of SCI-Arc, Stephen Kanner, modernist and founder of the A+D Museum (Kanner passed away in 2010), and Lauren Rottet, an internationally recognized interior architect.

Architects profiled in the book:

Barry Berkus of Berkus Design Studio Boris Dramov, FAIA, President of ROMA Design Group Steven Ehrlich, FAIA, Design Principal of Ehrlich Architects Richard Emsiek, AIA, President and COO of McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners Elisa Garcia, President of Garcia Architects Art Gensler, FAIA, Chairman of Gensler Craig Hodgetts, FAIA, Creative Director and Hsinming Fung, AIA, Director of Design at Hodgetts and Fung Design and Architecture Michael Johnson, AIA, Design Principal of Carrier Johnson + Culture Stephen Kanner, FAIA, President of Kanner Architects Ray Kappe, FAIA, President of Kappe+Du Architects Hank Koning, FAIA, Founding Principal and Julie Eizenberg, AIA, Founding Principal of Koning Eizenberg Dan Meis, FAIA, Senior Principal of Populous David Mourning, President and CEO of IA Interior Architects

Barton Myers, FAIA, President of Barton Myers Associates Ed Niles, FAIA, President of Edward R. Niles Architect Juan Diego Perez-Vargas, Principal of KMD Architects Simon Perkowitz, AIA, CEO and President and Steve Ruth, AIA, Executive Vice President of Perkowitz+Ruth Architects Randy Peterson, FAIA, President and CEO of HMC Architects Michael Patrick Porter, AIA, President of Michael Patrick Porter Architect Beverly Prior, FAIA, Principal of Beverly Prior Architects (now HMC Architects) Lauren Rottet, FAIA, Founding Principal and Richard Riveire, AIA, Principal of Rottet Studio Don Sandy, FAIA, President of SB Architects Rob Steinberg, FAIA, President of Steinberg Architects Erik Sueberkrop, FAIA, Chairman of STUDIOS Architecture Allison Williams, FAIA, Principal of Perkins + Will

For more information on Kennedy and the book, check out www.architectsuccess.com where Waltercomms blog readers receive a 20% discount by using the code Blog20.

Publishing Strategy: Traditional and New Media

The publishing industry is changing. Today every company and individual has free access to the tools they need to be a publisher, but the resulting deluge of content makes the role of "gatekeepers" more essential than ever. I gave this presentation on the merits of traditional publishing, self-publishing and new media at a San Francisco SMPS event to help landscape, architecture, engineering, planning and construction firms create publishing strategies that work for their firms.

Publishing Strategy: Traditional and New Media[slideshare id=13395259&w=425&h=355&sc=no]

What has been your experience with publishing -- old or new?

Putting It All Out There

I’ve known for many years that writing a book is no easy task. I pitched the publisher, managed the writing, editing, image selection, etc. of EDAW’s first book Designing Public Consensus with author Barbara Faga in 2005. I distinctly remember prying the manuscript from her hands on the day of our final deadline. I now completely understand the difficulty of letting go of something that bears your name. I’ve since apologized to Barbara for not being more empathic. I was fully prepared to put in the long hours, but my family wasn’t. When I worked on Designing Public Consensus, I was married with no children and my husband accommodated my schedule by having dinner ready when I finally arrived home from work and I learned to happily eat tacos 3 nights each week. This time, my husband has a much broader range of recipes, but we also have two young kids. Working late wasn’t really an option, so I started my days at 5am and a couple nights a week I’d plug back in after the kids went to bed. After a while, this started to wear on me. Working a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays and few hours here and there on vacations, this started to wear on my husband.

My co-author Holly Berkley, who has written two books prior to this one, also has her own consultancy, a husband and two young kids—but somehow she manages this smoothly. I’m so glad to have had her throughout this process to lean on, complain to and learn from.

I had mixed feelings about letting go of this manuscript. “Perfect is the enemy of done”—a mantra a former boss used to recite to me. This went through my head daily, but there was always seemed to be one more thing. Finally we finished it. Now it’s out there for the world to judge.

The product of 13 long months, Social Media in Action: Comprehensive Guide for Architecture, Engineering, Planning and Environmental Consulting Firms is now available as an ebook for $9.95 and the print version will be available next week for $29.95. You can even enter to win a copy on from our AEC Idea Exchange Facebook page by posting your favorite design or planning site, tool or event on social media.

However you come across a copy—if you come across a copy—and if you read it, we’d love to know what you think. And if you like it, please tell someone about it.